Understanding customer experiences in online blog environments

Blogs have recently become an influential medium and have demonstrated enormous marketing power. Consumers can freely conduct ongoing information searches through this new channel. However, the credibility of blogs plays an important role in creating opportunities for positive customer experiences that can shape consumers’ product/service purchase intentions and decisions. In light of this observation, this study proposes a theoretical framework that delineates the relationship among information credibility, customer experiences, and purchase intention in the blog environment. Data collected from 468 subjects in specific corporate blogs provide support for the proposed model using partial least squares (PLS). The results indicate that information credibility is critical for facilitating customer experiences, which, in turn, is necessary to enhance purchase intention. Additionally, greater involvement with blog significantly increases the effect of customer experiences on purchase intention. The detailed theoretical and managerial implications are presented.     

Use of Social Networking Sites by LIS Professionals in Higher Education Institutions in India: A Study

The study investigates how library and information science professionals working in higher education institutions in India integrate social networking sites (SNS) into their routine work. It was revealed through the questionnaire that the majority of respondents are members of the institution's official group on the SNS, whereas only one fifth are members of an unofficial student group. These information professionals use SNS to socialize, keep themselves up-to-date, find jobs, and acquire information about conferences and seminars in their respective fields. Some of the legitimate concerns of library and information science professionals are privacy and cyberbullying. To increase use, social networking applications must be incorporated into the curriculum of master's degree courses for library and information science.     

News You Can Use: Contemporary SDI and Anticipatory Reference for Government Information

ABSTRACT

Government information is becoming available to citizens more quickly than ever before due to electronic dissemination via the Internet. Two projects that rapidly capture, organize, and publicize regionally relevant government information are examined: Government News for Montana and New Mexico News Plus. These news-based sites serve as tools for collection development and digital archiving, proactive reference, content alerting services, information literacy, promotion, and outreach. Issues to consider and suggestions for the application of these services at other libraries are discussed.     

博客在大学生思想政治教育中的作用

高校思想政治教育工作者把互联网作为开展思政教育的重要阵地,将网络技术作为开展思政教育的重要手段顺应了网络时代发展的需求。文章旨在分析博客在大学生思想政治教育中的作用。     

辅导员博客在高校思想政治工作中的应用技巧研究

如何正确引导高校网络舆情、使学生积极利用网络工具健康成长而不受其牵制已成为当今高校的重要课题,互联网的迅猛发展也为高校开展思政工作提供了新载体,同时也提出了新的挑战。本研究从辅导员这个角色和近年来辅导员博客运用实践出发,试图在实践的基础上提炼出辅导员博客在开展大学生思想政治工作中的运用技巧。     

教师博客的实效研究——基于“使用—满足”的传播模型

运用传播学的"使用—满足"模型,从学生的角度对教师博客的实际效果进行调查研究发现,教师博客在辅助课堂教学和学生学习方面虽取得了一定的成效,但还不够重视师生互动对话的空间,影响了学生对教师博客使用的满意度。     

FOLLOWING THE ACTION

Live sports blogging is a relatively new form of journalism in wide and frequent use by media companies but has received little attention from the academy. This article outlines a study that explored the belief and value system behind live sports blogging to establish whether shifts were taking place within the professional ideology of sports journalism. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 live sports bloggers in the United Kingdom. The study found that live bloggers retained core journalistic values and beliefs of balancing objectivity and subjectivity, immediacy, providing a public service and editorial autonomy. However, live blogging's challenges of immediacy, interactivity and shifting consumption patterns have led to a reimagining of what these concepts mean and the skills and competences required. Live bloggers perceived their role as community builders and mediators of discussion as well as information providers, and this represents a new openness and inclusivity within the occupational base. Participants did not regard these changes to be a dumbing down of standards but rather a paradigm shift towards flattening hierarchies between journalist and audience. The findings suggest live bloggers have shown a greater willingness to adapt than previous research into the migration of sports journalists to digital platforms has found.     

Why We Blog: Homeschooling Mothers of Gifted Children

Blogs have become a go-to information resource for members of online communities. In this qualitative study we applied uses and gratifications theory (U&GT) to analyze the experiences and perceptions of four mothers of gifted children who maintain blogs about their homeschooling experiences. Data suggest that this novel context and population did not yield different categories of gratification; however, not all prior categories were represented among this relatively narrow sample. Results support findings from prior research in other contexts suggesting that bloggers find gratification from self-expression, social interaction, information exchange, maintaining community, and recording life events.     

A Library and a Radio Show: The Story of a Successful Partnership at 10 Years and Counting

Your Health® Radio is a weekly one-hour radio show about consumer health produced by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Family Medicine. It provides practical, health-related news and information to listeners in an easy to understand style. Hosted by a family medicine physician faculty member and co-hosted by other health professionals, it airs on a local radio station. Since 2009, Health Sciences librarians have collaborated on the show, bringing their expertise in information discovery and organization, consumer health, and health literacy to this consumer health endeavor. In the process, the librarians and libraries have also benefitted.     

Exploring educational use of blogs in U.S. education

As one of the Web 2.0 tools, blogs are widely used in US education. This paper gives a brief overview of blogs such as advantages, disadvantages, and major software for creating blogs, and then it reviews some EduBlogs, its usage, and examples in US education. The purpose is to motivate more educators to use blogs in teaching and research as well as introduce blogs as useful educational tools and its great potentials.